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MUCH ADO ABOUT NEARLY NOTHING: Nanotech and the future of energy

The biggest challenge of our time, meeting the energy demands of an exploding population on a warming planet, may well be met by manipulating matter on the tiniest of scales — revolutionizing how we power the planet. Join world-class nanoscientists and environmental leaders to explore how the capacity to harness molecules and atoms is accelerating spectacular inventions — including light-weight “wonder materials,” vital energy-storage technologies, and new sources of renewable energy — which promise to redefine the very future of energy.

The Kavli Prize recognizes scientists for their seminal advances in astrophysics, nanoscience, and neuroscience. The series, “The Big, the Small, and the Complex,” is sponsored by The Kavli Foundation and The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

Moderator

Walter Isaacson is president and CEO of the Aspen Institute. He has been chairman and CEO of CNN and editor of TIME magazine. Isaacson’s most recent book is The Innovators; he authored Steve Jobs and several other best-selling biographies.

Participants

Sanjoy Banerjee is Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering and Director of the CUNY Energy Institute, which he founded on moving to CUNY from UC Santa Barbara in 2008. The Institute develops sustainable energy technologies with low carbon footprints.

Yury Gogotsi is Distinguished University Professor and Trustee Chair of Materials Science and Engineering at Drexel University in Philadelphia. He is the founding Director of the A.J. Drexel Nanomaterials Institute and Associate Editor of ACS Nano.

Paul S. Weiss holds a UC Presidential Chair and is a distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and of materials science and engineering at UCLA. He served as the director of the California NanoSystems Institute and held the Fred Kavli Chair in NanoSystems Sciences.